Samsung Securities’ $105 Billion Fat-Finger Share Error Triggers Urgent Regulator Inquiry | Apps & Software

Last week, an employee of Samsung Securities Co., Samsung Group’s stock-trading entity and one of the largest trading companies in South Korea, accidentally issued shares worth some $105 billion to 2,018 of its employees who are members of its stock-owner program. The employees in the program were supposed to receive a dividend totaling 2 billion won (or about $0.93 per share they owned), but were mistakenly issued 2 billion shares instead. The amount issued was more than 30 times the total number of outstanding Samsung Securities’ shares.

Embarrassingly, Samsung Securities admitted that it took 37 minutes to fix what had occurred after it became aware of the problem. Even more humiliating, sixteen Samsung Security employees were able to still sell off some 5 million shares of their payout, despite repeatedly being warned not to do so by their managers. Perhaps the warnings were ignored because they were able to make about 10 billion won ($9.3 million) each. Four other employees tried to sell their shares, but their trades were stopped before being completed.